nature should do her own work, so does the judicious parent feel that children should sometimes be left to try their own strength, and should neither expect nor need assistance.

It is the fault not merely of indulgent, but of over-anxious parents, to treat their children too much as first objects. This is evident from their earliest years. And the little creatures are very quick at discerning their own importance. Their sayings are repeated, their talents lauded, their pleasures studied. They are suffered to interrupt and to interfere; and, though we cannot perhaps say that they are rude, we must feel that they are very troublesome. And where this treatment is pursued in childhood, it is generally continued in adolescence. The young people are the perpetual theme; their success is blazoned as if it were without precedent,—and we are wearied with hearing of their prizes or their prospects. Yet all this must have a very bad effect upon their future character; for they soon fancy themselves all that their partial friends imagine,—and then they must either learn a bitter lesson from a harsh and censorious

world, or prop themselves up in their own good opinion by an extra portion of conceit.

It is, of course, the first care of religious parents to prepare their children for their eternal state; but it is by fitting them to fill their relations here that they will best educate them for immortality. Besides the mere communication of religious truth, of what importance is it to regulate the temper, and to direct the mind! How many pious persons have cause to regret. their own inconsistencies; the consequence, perhaps, of irritability contracted in childhood, which in maturer years it is very difficult to correct. How often they have to lament their own inertness, the natural effect of early indulgence, which wastes and deadens the intellectual faculties, and disqualifies them for future effort. And though they may struggle against such evils, and by Divine grace may be able to overcome them, they always find that bad habits are their worst enemies, and that it is much more easy to discern than to correct them.

Amiability, intelligence, and an absence of affectation, are the most delightful features in

female character; and those which, next to religious principle, it is the business of education to impart. And if we would wish our children to be loved as well as admired, and esteemed as well as loved; if we would render them happy here, fortify them against the changes of life, and fit them for its close; we must endeavour to engraft these qualities upon the solid basis of Christian truth. Religious parents will of course always look to a higher influence, and will feel the inadequacy of all human effort; but they will, nevertheless, diligently sow the seed, in humble hope; or, rather, in full assurance that it will be watered from above.

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CHAP. XIII.

FEMALE DUTIES.

It is not to be denied that Christianity is a practical principle: nor is it to be denied that it is the only principle that ensures satisfactory practical results. Its morality is perfect, because it is universal, and because it is the natural consequence of its truths.

No woman can fulfil her social duties without being religious. We need not search antiquity for exceptions to this remark. Examples of

female virtue were then sufficiently rare; and, where they did occur, the case was different. The woman who throws off religion now, as it were, invites temptation; and though worldly considerations may induce decorum and correctness, these are only negative virtues. Even where natural amiability so far prevails as to dispose to kind or benevolent effort, it is but a weak principle, apt to yield to the impulse of

selfishness, and influential only when not opposed by any more potent feeling.

Christianity is practical throughout: it is so in its religious as well as in its moral obligations. It is not a mere creed, or a mere system; but a simple, sincere, practical service, intelligible to all; which all may render; and which approves itself to the conscience as the only tribute worthy of God.

Yet the fault of the religion of ordinary persons is its insincerity. Not that they are intentionally disingenuous; but they admit a casuistry in religion which they would not tolerate in any thing else.

How insincere, for instance, is that modish religion which appears, on a Sunday, in its holiday attire, and of which no vestige remains after the first service of the day is concluded. Or that periodical religion which looks prim and demure at certain seasons; and which, having fasted on Good Friday, and knelt at the table on Easter Sunday, reverses the popish order, and keeps its carnival the ensuing week. Or that sentimental religion which sheds a few tears at a moving discourse, and falls into hys